Washburn M1SD - Mandolin - Black Mandolin

Hi! Oh the irony!!! I put top of the range coated Daddario strings on all our outgoing Washburns! Had I known.... never mind. Bare in mind for future reference, we can put any strings on as part of the service should you ever wish to purchase another in the future :) I am so glad you love the guitar and rememeber provide a 6 and 12 month check and reset should you wish to pop by later in the year. Thanks again

Subject: Stephen - Its Richard here! Please let me help.
Hi Steve First of all - My only desire from this moment is certainly not to protect my reputation - it is to ensure you believe in me as a human being and that you walk away knowing every word of what I say on my website - and in my videos is 100% true. It sounds like you have watched my videos!! So if you have watched them thoroughly you may have seen the 'your truth my truth' video where I talk about where two parallel experience can indeed both be true because they are both being viewed from different lenses - and I am condident we have one of this situations right here - and so - I am not here to prove you WRONG - I am here to ammend your experience (btw - I know I talk like chat gpt sometimes but bizarrely these are the words of a human - not a robot!!!) I’ve taken a bit of time to read it through your experience carefully, as it’s important to me that I properly understand where your disappointment came from and ive found a couple of main areas. Having read what you’ve said, I think there are a couple of key factors that may explain your experience — and one of them I’d really like to check properly for you. When you ordered, you requested 11–52 strings, (and this is important) which we would have set the guitar up around. You’ve since moved to 10–47, which are lighter in tension and will naturally make the guitar feel easier to play and slightly reduce the perceived action. That alone can make a noticeable difference in how the guitar feels. I suppose my thoughts for you at this stage are - Did you NEED to replace the strings because the action was too high initially? Or did you simply choose to go to a ligher set anyway? The only reason I say this is as you may know, a set of 10 guage will feel super light - lovely to play but you do lose tone - and maybe I can help you get the added tone AND have the action set the same as it will be playing now with the string tension reduced (which we would do through the setup). In terms of the strings themselves, we would normally fit D’Addario XS coated strings as standard on these guitars — which are actually the same family of strings you’ve now chosen, just in the gauge originally requested. They are premium strings as you will know and this is all part of our dedicated service to provide the best. As part of that, there should also have been a D’Addario XS packet included in the box so you could see exactly what had been fitted. Because of your comments, I’d really like to double-check our workshop notes and just confirm that everything was done exactly as intended in your case. Could you let me know if the empty packet was in the box with the guitar - most likely between the strings - when it arrived? I just want you to know that regardless of whether you want to stick with the 10-47 or would like to go back to 11-52 gauge strings but with the same action height as the 10-47 will now be giving you (it will still feel firmer - heavier in some ways - but will have the similar string height with a slightly thicker tone) - We ARE here to help you with the whole process at no extra cost - and if you want to explore that locally - I will pay for it. This is all part of the service and support we stand by, including your 6 and 12 month check and reset (Just to slightly correct you - the £250 is £225 and includes a number of parts which combine to make £225 of which the initial setup is £90 - but I am only mentioning this to make you aware there are added layers still available to you such as the 6 and 12 month check and resets). I am genuinely happy for you that you are finding the pleasure in the guitar that I would have wanted you to experience from the outset and I genuinely believe the setup process and ensuring the correct relief is in the neck, will have played its part in the ease in which the 10 gauge strings fell into place (or it could just be luck - Maybe I am grabbing at straws!!) but I can sense this entire let down does seem to stem around the strings - so I would be so grateful if you could let me know what strings were on the guitar I can begin to fathom what else could have caused them to sound so poor when you received it. (They come fitted and labelled 'Daddario' but we will always put the XS box in with the guitar - or at least should do!!!). Stephen - I always say - never meet your heros - and I am not saying for a moment I was your hero - but I would like to be :( If you could let me try - I will do my best to achieve that ambition!!! Warm regards, Richard